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Informationen zum Autor Elma W. Bagg Klappentext Putting down the saltshaker is just the first step.... Experts agree that a low-sodium diet can decrease the risk of heart disease! migraines! diabetes! and osteoporosis. But to significantly reduce the salt in your diet! you must learn how to spot the hidden sodium in frozen foods! canned goods! and popular recipes. Fully revised and updated using the latest medical research! Cooking Without a Grain of Salt is a nutrition guide and cookbook all in one. It's filled with useful tips on how to limit sodium without sacrificing flavor--as well as savory recipes that will help you put your healthy! low-salt lifestyle into action. From Stuffed Mushrooms and Double Corn Biscuits to Pork Medallions in Pesto! Grilled Tuna with Salsa! and Pasta Primavera! Cooking Without a Grain of Salt lets you enjoy all the dishes you love while forming healthy eating habits for years to come.. The Role Of Sodium: Nutritional Background Sodium is a mineral basic and necessary to animal and plant life, and salt (sodium chloride) has been used as a seasoning since ancient times. But medical consensus tells us that excess sodium can cause us all eventual harm. The kidneys are the organs that control the level of salt in our bodies. If there is too much salt, healthy kidneys excrete it into our urine. When kidneys are faulty, or if too much salt enters the system, the excess salt stays in the bloodstream, absorbing water to keep it dissolved. That excess liquid in the confined space of our circulatory system causes swelling that puts dangerous hydraulic pressure on the walls of blood vessels and leaves us at risk for strokes and heart attacks. If arteries are clogged with fat, that risk is compounded. But we can lessen the risk of such damage by maintaining adequate potassium in our diet. A healthy body needs more potassium than sodium in order to ensure the efficient workings of its cells. These minerals work cooperatively to activate the intake of nutrients and the excretion of wastes on the cellular level in a process governed by the sodium-potassium pump, a kind of engine that drives cell activity. To maintain the essential high-potassium ratio, known as the "K factor," people must eat fresh fruits and vegetables. The National Academy of Science recommends between 1,600 and 2,000 milligrams of potassium a day. Foods particularly high in potassium include dried apricots, bananas, potatoes (especially sweet potatoes), dried beans and peas, meat, peanut butter, and orange juice. For additional information, read The K Factor by Richard D. Moore and George D. Webb (Macmillan, 1986). Primitive societies lived close to their plant and animal food, did not salt food as a matter of course as we do, and ate much of it uncooked. Potassium was plentiful in this natural diet. Sodium wasn't. Thus humans were genetically programmed millennia ago to excrete potassium and retain sodium. There is even a particular place at the edge of the tongue that detects saltiness in foods. As civilizations developed and some groups moved away from their food source, salt became the indispensable preserving ingredient so that food could both travel and keep. So honored was the role of salt that it entered the language both as a measure of value and an index of excellence. Hence we are paid a sal ary; good folk are the salt of the earth.2 It is interesting to note just how effective a preserving agent salt became in ancient Egypt. Mummification depended on salt! When the Nile receded from its yearly floods, it left behind pockets of a substance the Egyptians called natron, a sodium-based chemical essential to the technology of preserving mummies. As people discovered that salt could preserve foods for long periods, they also discovered that they liked the taste it gave ...
